


Here There Be Dragons

by grim_lupine



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian, Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Author's Favorite, Crossover, Gen, M/M, Mostly Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 06:32:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4049827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grim_lupine/pseuds/grim_lupine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or: 3 looks at Jack Aubrey in the Temeraire world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here There Be Dragons

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you to pageleaf for looking this over for me, and for putting up with me as I threw a bunch of headcanons at her in the process of writing this. ♥

i.

When Jack first met Stephen Maturin, he thought to himself _What an ill-looking man, to be sure_ ; he might be forgiven his judgment, however, for at the time Maturin had been roused early after not nearly enough time abed, no coffee in hand, and thereafter directed to see to Pyxis and Jack at once, the one in need of examination and the other of education. Maturin explained to Jack the care Pyxis would need from him at this stage in which he was still growing, eyeing Jack all the while as suspiciously as if he expected Jack to begin berating Pyxis in front of him for being a dragon and not, in fact, a ship.

The second time Jack saw him, Jack had by then been made aware that Maturin was a surgeon equally skilled with men and dragons, that skill of such a level that every aviator who spoke of him did so in possessive, half-awed tones; furthermore, he was a naturalist with several papers published to great acclaim, Pyxis reported with such enthusiasm that Jack felt a sting of jealousy grip him, baseless as it may have been. If he chose to then turn the conversation to astronomy, a field in which Jack had sure footing and a conviction of his own prowess, well, it was no man’s business but his, and he would blush at the memory later. For now, he enjoyed the way Pyxis drank in the new knowledge and probed Jack for more in his sweet, coaxing tones, the way he laughed aloud when Jack shared with him a piece of wit he had been saving for the occasion. It was not until later that Jack turned and saw Maturin a short distance away, his expressionless face turned in Jack and Pyxis’s direction.

_If only he were not so damned difficult to read_ , Jack thought to himself uneasily; anyone who conversed with a dragon at a dragon’s volume could not in good conscience call such a conversation private, and so Jack did not allow himself to consider Maturin’s presence an intrusion. Still, he did wish he could tell what the man were thinking behind those spectacles and that thin-lipped, set look, if only to know whether his half-formed supposition were correct: that on Maturin’s face there had been a fleeting, quickly covered look of surprised amusement.

The third, the fourth, and indeed the tenth time and more passed on by, until Jack and Stephen were known to each other as such, having found a kindred spirit where they had not thought to look for one. Aviator society was markedly different from that of the Royal Navy, lacking a great deal of its starch and rigor, and yet for all that, Jack found himself quite comfortable amongst his new comrades. Their bluntness appealed to his nature; and once he had seen that a woman could do the job as well as — or in some cases, better than — a man, he had no trouble fighting alongside Captain Villiers or answering to Admiral Roland.

Pyxis was very sensitive to any feeling that Jack might be longing for the Navy, for the sea; that his arrival in Jack’s life and the subsequent disarray into which he had put it were anything less than welcome; that he had held his beloved captain back from his true purpose. Even if Jack _had_ been sinking into moroseness every evening for want of those very things, he would have taken pains to keep it to himself, for he had come to love Pyxis as the other half of himself and would not hurt him for the world. As it was, Jack found it easier than he had expected to love his new life as much as the old, to feel nothing more than the occasional sting when he saw the tiny ships scattered across the glittering blue seas that spread before him when he flew with Pyxis for endless lengths. The Navy had reared him more than any parent ever had; the Navy had shaped him and made him the man he was today. Jack did not take that to mean that he couldn’t be shaped further by his dragon — that the man he was today was the furthest he would ever grow.

Jack did not know himself how firmly entrenched he had become in the mindset of the Aerial Corps — nor how much he valued Stephen’s competence — until for the first time Pyxis did not escape a battle unscathed. He fought through it with all the endurance that could be asked of anyone, and Jack’s heart ached with pride in him and fear for his sake; when they touched down Jack scrambled from the rigging with all the nimbleness of a boy, saw the savage gouges weeping blood and the bullet buried in Pyxis’s shoulder, and felt his head swim in his panic.

With all the romance and feeling of any captain in the Navy, he had felt his ship human, winced at every splintered mast and shot to her side as if the damage had been to him; a ship did not breathe, though; a ship did not laugh. A ship did not call him _dear Jack_ and talk mathematics with him, and a ship was not _Pyxis_ , who could not be badly hurt or else Jack would —

Steadying hands at his elbow. “Move aside a little, my dear,” Stephen’s voice came from a distance, and numbly Jack did as he was told. He watched Stephen work with his heart in his mouth, but slowly felt his stomach settle back into place at the deft motions of Stephen’s hands, the intent look on his face. Pyxis’s eyes blinked lethargically, and his whole body trembled from nose to tail-tip as Stephen finally extracted the bullet and dropped it into a waiting bucket. Jack did not move from where he stood, knees locked, until Stephen had finished cleaning Pyxis’s wounds and bandaging him; then he took a breath and moved forward to run a careful hand over Pyxis’s head.

“You did very well, dear one,” Jack said quietly, and felt Pyxis nuzzle into his hand even as he succumbed to sleep.

“That he did; and he will do well now,” said Stephen, clasping Jack by the arm. “Now _you_ must be seen to, unless you wish to agitate your dragon the moment he is awake again. Come, come. Here there is too much blood.”

Jack blinked, blinked again; in the space of those movements of his eyelids, Stephen had somehow dragged him away to sit on a cot, firm hands tipping his head upward, and at last Jack recognized the tacky sting of blood drying down the side of his face, and winced as Stephen probed the source of said blood at the top of his head.

“It is less worrisome than I had thought, at least,” Stephen said as if to himself; Jack held himself still through the process of Stephen cleaning his wound, and felt himself start to tip sideways despite his best efforts to stay upright and alert. Stephen’s hands helped him down to lie on the cot, and Jack tried to struggle awake — to say something, surely something needed to be said — but it was like trying to blink his eyes open while drowning in syrup.

“Sleep, brother. Pyxis is in good hands,” the familiar low voice murmured, a note of curious tenderness in it; and as Jack fell into the arms of exhaustion that rocked him like the ocean, like a breeze, like a journey on dragonback with the flap of great wings around his ears, he heard himself say, “As am I, Stephen,” and felt that trusted hand clasp his own as he slept.

 

ii.

Had it been up to Jack’s father, he might have joined the Navy as a boy and been captain of a ship by now, a path far more expected for a first and only son such as he. Having been fortunate enough to have had an uncle with connections in the Aerial Corps, an eye for a young boy with a boisterous nature and a love of dragons, and a knack for persuading General Aubrey when no one else could, Jack was instead captain of a Regal Copper named Auriga who he would take over any ten ships of the Royal Navy without an ounce of hesitation.

“Could you imagine me amongst all the sir-ing and the pomp of the Navy, truly?” Jack said in Auriga’s ear, privately; no matter his personal allegiances, he did not like to seem critical of any branch of the British military — he could only ever speak so freely with his dragon, for if she was his dragon he was in turn her captain, and she would not mistake him.

“You would have been a much larger bore, that’s for certain,” a rich, amused voice said from behind him, and Jack startled and whirled about to see Diana with brush in hand, having evidently just come back from seeing to Artemis.

“Damn it, Diana, can’t you make some noise when you come up on a man?” Jack demanded; and to Auriga he said, “Or _you_ might have warned me, at least.”

“You know my eyesight is poor on ground,” Auriga said innocently, or as innocently as a 45-ton dragon could manage. It was true; in the air, her eyes were as keen as a hawk’s, but anything in front of her nose was unmanageable. Still:

“And I’m certain you never saw her coming this way from a distance,” Jack said, unable to help the note of fondness in his voice as he patted one of Auriga’s massive ears. To Diana, he said, fully aware that he was leaving her a place in which to bury her wit, “A bore?”

“Yes,” Diana said, flashing him a wicked grin. “You’d likely have tried to call me _Miss_ or marry me had you met me, when all we really needed was a good tumble to get it out of our systems. Although I suppose there’s something to be said for a Jack Aubrey that I haven’t seen come up through spots and cracking voice and worse…”

“I might have required the correction at first, but no one, having met you, would find it difficult to call you _Captain_ ,” Jack said, and busied himself with Auriga once more so he could pretend he hadn’t seen the brief look of surprised pleasure on Diana’s face; it was nothing more than the truth, at any rate. Diana had more dash and courage than most men, and fought atop Artemis like nothing less than some mythological creature meant for the skies.

“Stephen was looking for you, when you have a moment,” Diana said, that pleased note in her voice, now. “I’m sure he wishes to be taken up to see a rare bird or a lizard or somesuch; if I were you, I would practice hardening my heart now itself.” She stroked her hand over Auriga’s jaw in a parting caress, before she left as silently as she had come.

There was that as well — in a world where Jack Aubrey had joined the Navy, where would that have left Stephen? He was so thoroughly competent a surgeon as to be beloved to the entire Aerial Corps, in truth; but he was disastrous as a child when it came to looking after himself. If Jack were not there to remind him to keep his money tucked out of sight when he went walking, or to put his books away and eat something more than dry toast now and again, then who would?

And in a world without Stephen in it — without his closest friend of these past years, who fiddled away with Jack in the evenings, whose waspish tones could bring Jack back down to the ground when he needed it, but who always patched Jack up with the gentlest hands a man could wish for at his bedside — where would that have left Jack?

Jack looked over Auriga’s talons in silence for several minutes, stroked behind her ears and wiped some caked-on mud from her foreleg, before at last he said quietly, “My dear, do you think — if you were to venture a guess — does it seem to you as if Stephen has set his sights on Diana?”

Auriga cocked her head and looked at him with one great eye; the knowing gaze had Jack continuing hastily:

“I ask only as I have seen him looking at us queerly now and again, and I should hate to have him think that Diana and I are anything more than what we are; should hate to see him hold himself back for that cause.”

“Well, as to that,” Auriga began reasonably, “I know you have noticed, as you are _my_ captain and therefore intelligent enough to see that when Stephen is looking at you both, it isn’t only Diana that he — ”

“Oh _don’t_ — ” Jack said, and put his forehead against Auriga’s flank so he could breathe. He was flushed, dizzy; her words were nothing he hadn’t thought in his most secret mind for some time now, and everything he had been burying for fear of facing; he could not hear it just yet. He did not have the courage.

Auriga let him calm himself to the rhythm of her massive body breathing against him; finally, she flattened herself on the ground and buried her head atop her forelegs.

“Humans are very illogical,” she said, displeased as a schoolmarm, though she tucked Jack against her so he better fit her new position. “I shall take a nap now; you should go see Stephen.”

The pointed silence after her words said everything the words themselves did not. Jack wiped his brow and tugged his collar back into place; he patted Auriga’s side one last time and took himself off to do as he was told, and go see Stephen. 

When he entered the room, he saw Stephen and Diana with their heads bent together over a piece of paper; Jack’s heart gave a curious thump at the sight, and he shuffled in place, uncharacteristically off-balance, before clearing his throat. 

Stephen’s head snapped up. The smile that lifted his lips at the sight of Jack was not, objectively, overly demonstrative; and yet for someone who knew him well — who could see the light brightening his eyes, the clear pleasure in the part of his lips — it was everything. 

Jack smiled back, the uneasy knot in his stomach dissolving away, his heart settling back into place; perhaps he would find his courage one of these days; and perhaps — perhaps it would all be fine, after all. 

 

iii. 

“ — but you don’t — you don’t _miss_ it, do you, Laurence?” 

The dragon’s voice carried further than a man’s would; Jack paused where he was, out of sight, as he heard Temeraire continue hastily, now evidently attempting to hide the plaintive note in his voice, “That is, I don’t mean to say that I doubt how happy you are with us, and I suppose I should like to meet Captain Aubrey as well, after all I’ve heard of him; I only mean — ”

“Never think it for an instant, my dear,” Laurence said at once, in soothing tones, though his sincerity was evident. “The Navy was my life once upon a time; but I would not give up my place with you for the world. Pray set your mind at ease on that matter.”

Well, Jack could not say that he had not wondered a time or two how a man brought up in the Navy had fared when plucked from it, but to hear it from the mouth of the man himself, it seemed he had found his place and more. 

Jack had a sudden, strange notion of what it would be like if the ships he had captained could speak, and think, and worry over whether or not he wished to leave them for greener pastures; he felt a sudden stab of sympathy for Temeraire, and it was that that had him step away from where he was hidden and make his presence known (as well as a sting of shame for eavesdropping so long on what was meant to be a private conversation). 

At the sound Jack made moving forward, both man and dragon turned to look at him; Captain Laurence smiled — a small smile, as he did not seem a man overly given to levity, but a sincere one nonetheless — and Temeraire cocked his head in a manner that even Jack could tell was interested, if perhaps wary. 

“Captain Aubrey,” Laurence said, coming forward to shake his hand, a handshake Jack returned with interest. “A pleasure to meet you.” 

“Likewise, Captain Laurence,” Jack said; turning to Temeraire, he said, “And you as well, sir.” 

“Oh, you may call me Temeraire,” Temeraire said brightly; he seemed in better spirits already. “What are you holding there?” 

Laurence twitched minutely, as if he wished to cover his eyes; but Jack smiled broadly, directness always holding well with him. 

“Having heard that you have a liking for mathematics, I brought some of my books so that we might converse upon them, if you wish,” Jack said, holding up the books. “I don’t often get the chance myself.”

“Why, that is very kind of you!” Temeraire said, and nosed his massive head forward to inspect the texts closer. 

“Indeed it is,” Laurence said, and his smile was even warmer this time. “I thank you for it.”

“It is no trouble at all,” Jack said, waving it off. “Only I must warn you, when my ship’s surgeon has a free moment I know he wishes to meet Temeraire and will likely ask him questions until the night grows dark; he has a scientific mind, you see.”

“As does Temeraire, and answering questions is no hardship to him,” Laurence said dryly. “I am certain they will get along just fine.”

He turned to Temeraire and patted him affectionately. “I will leave you two to talk now, my dear,” Laurence began, before saying to Jack politely, “I hope we may impose upon you to tell us of some of your victories later? I know the dragons especially were most eager to hear.”

“I should like nothing better,” Jack said, and watched Laurence go, before turning back to Temeraire and opening the first book as Temeraire put his head upon his forelegs and fixed Jack with a look of keen interest. 

 

“ — and I tell you, Stephen,” Jack said later that evening when they were back in his cabin, “I do not think I’ve had a more stimulating conversation in my time; to have it with a dragon is not exactly what I was expecting, but a pleasant surprise, to be sure. And an appreciation of humor as well! Why, when I repeated my joke about the weevils, he thought it most fine — most fine, indeed.”

“Well, that aside, he has a thoroughly developed intellect, as well as the inquisitive nature so many humans I have known seem to lack,” Stephen said, setting his bow and cello aside carefully so he could nibble at a dry biscuit, heedless of the crumbs he was dusting all over himself.

“I did wonder about Laurence,” Jack said, “but any man with a pair of eyes could see that the Corps suits him. If it should have happened to me, I suppose it would not have been the end of all things.”

He watched as Stephen finished the last of his biscuit and then discovered the mess he had made of himself, thereafter proceeding to brush himself off with a look of abstraction on his dear, familiar face.

“Given my choice, however,” Jack said softly, almost to himself, “I would have no life but this.” 

Stephen looked up; all at once he was entirely there in the cabin with Jack once more, instead of in his own head; and Jack could not have moved from his piercing look for all the world. 

At last Stephen smiled, and reached out to take up his bow again. “Another, my dear?” he said; and Jack in his contentedness reached for his violin and said to Stephen, “Always.”


End file.
